I love starting with one hand on the collar too. Keeps thier upper body under control and allows kind of a pivot point to 'swing' underneath them.

Its tough NOT to allow them to pin. It seems peoples arms naturally go for my legs. When I go butterfly even if I have an arm its easy for them to reach down. I guess they go for the knees with the gi, and the ankles no-gi.

Thinking about it, if I allow too wide a butterfly they try to pin one side and drive thier knee through. If I keep the knees close as I scoot up, they try to push them to one side. I am familiar and comfortable with people trying both. But when I am trying to get Xguard on them it becomes damn near impossible to either A)stop them B)continue with my game. I have to make defensive moves when I really want to be on offense.

When I start my sweep game, which is integral, I hit it hard. I don't like for the momentum to stop. I get hooks and I start to lift. I check thier base constantly. I am just like BAM BAM BAM BAM attack attack attack. And in those attacks people sometimes find that hole. Im looking for another ace card with the Xguard to open up more possibilities when they find those holes to swing the momentum in my favor again.

I don't actually want to drive him backwards when in the last two pics, I simply want to stand straight up which in turn will make him flip.

From butterfly sweep if they grab your ankles it's great. Sit your ass in close, nail their left hand to your right ankle with your right hand and do the sweep. He won't have any base now.

Johnny I was wondering about your students- the most common mistake/problem I see people having with this sweep is when they try to stand up from the seated position. I think it would be a good idea if you added how you didnt simply stand up in those last two pictures, but rather you stood up in base.

If you went into the calf cruncher from picture #4 you would have to push his leg down. Everytime I've seen it done or had it done to me your pulling the leg closed and not pushing it. I don't own this move so regard my comments in that light.

I think in THIS case, the pushing part of the calf slicer would come as your opponent is on his stomach and you have thrown you right leg over his left inside his knee pit ( just after pic 4) and climbed up on him somewhat. You then use your hip/upper thigh to 'push' down.

The reason I am intrigued is because I have tried this kind of technique before and rarely been successfull. However, I will admit that I was caught in it as a whitebelt when I tried a De La Riva guard without controlling someones arm once. I got turned over and calf slicered. It was a comedy submission.